Download Retrieved from: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945

Retrieved from: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/asia-and-africa
Decolonization of Asia and Africa, 1945–1960
Between 1945 and 1960, three dozen new states in Asia and Africa achieved autonomy or
outright independence from their European colonial rulers.
Harold MacMillan, British Prime Minister, helped begin decolonization
There was no one process of decolonization. In some areas, it was peaceful, and orderly. In many
others, independence was achieved only after a protracted revolution. A few newly independent
countries acquired stable governments almost immediately; others were ruled by dictators or
military juntas for decades, or endured long civil wars. Some European governments welcomed a
new relationship with their former colonies; others contested decolonization militarily. The
process of decolonization coincided with the new Cold War between the Soviet Union and the
United States, and with the early development of the new United Nations. Decolonization was
often affected by superpower competition, and had a definite impact on the evolution of that
competition. It also significantly changed the pattern of international relations in a more general
sense.
The creation of so many new countries, some of which occupied strategic locations, others of
which possessed significant natural resources, and most of which were desperately poor, altered
the composition of the United Nations and political complexity of every region of the globe. In
the mid to late 19th century, the European powers colonized much of Africa and Southeast Asia.
During the decades of imperialism, the industrializing powers of Europe viewed the African and
Asian continents as reservoirs of raw materials, labor, and territory for future settlement. In most
cases, however, significant development and European settlement in these colonies was sporadic.
However, the colonies were exploited, sometimes brutally, for natural and labor resources, and
sometimes even for military conscripts. In addition, the introduction of colonial rule drew
arbitrary natural boundaries where none had existed before, dividing ethnic and linguistic groups
and natural features, and laying the foundation for the creation of numerous states lacking
geographic, linguistic, ethnic, or political affinity.
During World War II Japan, itself a significant imperial power, drove the European powers out
of Asia. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, local nationalist movements in the former Asian
colonies campaigned for independence rather than a return to European colonial rule. In many
cases, as in Indonesia and French Indochina, these nationalists had been guerrillas fighting the
Japanese after European surrenders, or were former members of colonial military establishments.
These independence movements often appealed to the United States Government for support.
While the United States generally supported the concept of national self-determination, it also
had strong ties to its European allies, who had imperial claims on their former colonies. The Cold
War only served to complicate the U.S. position, as U.S. support for decolonization was offset by
American concern over communist expansion and Soviet strategic ambitions in Europe. Several
of the NATO allies asserted that their colonial possessions provided them with economic and
military strength that would otherwise be lost to the alliance. Nearly all of the United States’
European allies believed that after their recovery from World War II their colonies would finally
provide the combination of raw materials and protected markets for finished goods that would
cement the colonies to Europe. Whether or not this was the case, the alternative of allowing the
colonies to slip away, perhaps into the United States’ economic sphere or that of another power,
was unappealing to every European government interested in postwar stability. Although the
U.S. Government did not force the issue, it encouraged the European imperial powers to
negotiate an early withdrawal from their overseas colonies. The United States granted
independence to the Philippines in 1946.
However, as the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union came to dominate U.S. foreign
policy concerns in the late 1940s and 1950s, the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations grew
increasingly concerned that as the European powers lost their colonies or granted them
independence, Soviet-supported communist parties might achieve power in the new states. This
might serve to shift the international balance of power in favor of the Soviet Union and remove
access to economic resources from U.S. allies. Events such as the Indonesian struggle for
independence from the Netherlands (1945–50), the Vietnamese war against France (1945–54),
and the nationalist and professed socialist takeovers of Egypt (1952) and Iran (1951) served to
reinforce such fears, even if new governments did not directly link themselves to the Soviet
Union. Thus, the United States used aid packages, technical assistance and sometimes even
military intervention to encourage newly independent nations in the Third World to adopt
governments that aligned with the West. The Soviet Union deployed similar tactics in an effort to
encourage new nations to join the communist bloc, and attempted to convince newly decolonized
countries that communism was an intrinsically non-imperialist economic and political ideology.
Many of the new nations resisted the pressure to be drawn into the Cold War, joined in the
“nonaligned movement,” which formed after the Bandung conference of 1955, and focused on
internal development.
The newly independent nations that emerged in the 1950s and the 1960s became an important
factor in changing the balance of power within the United Nations. In 1946, there were 35
member states in the United Nations; as the newly independent nations of the “third world”
joined the organization, by 1970 membership had swelled to 127. These new member states had
a few characteristics in common; they were non-white, with developing economies, facing
internal problems that were the result of their colonial past, which sometimes put them at odds
with European countries and made them suspicious of European-style governmental structures,
political ideas, and economic institutions. These countries also became vocal advocates of
continuing decolonization, with the result that the UN Assembly was often ahead of the Security
Council on issues of self-governance and decolonization. The new nations pushed the UN toward
accepting resolutions for independence for colonial states and creating a special committee on
colonialism, demonstrating that even though some nations continued to struggle for
independence, in the eyes of the international community, the colonial era was ending.